


you lift me up

by goodmanperfectsoldier



Series: Warm Blood [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Blood Drinking, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Vampires, major character un-death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 18:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18922387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmanperfectsoldier/pseuds/goodmanperfectsoldier
Summary: Steve is small, and sick, and dying. Bucky has a watch, a witch, and Steve’s permission. He’s taking the only chance he has to save Steve’s life—or maybe just make it something...else.(Or, Steve the Tiny Chubby Vampire: Origins.)





	you lift me up

It’s 1935, Steve Rogers is 17 years old, and he’s dying.

It’s 1935, Bucky Barnes is 18 years old, and Steve Rogers _isn’t_ dying, not if Bucky can help it.

He’s exhausted almost all of his options. There’s one thing left to try, and it’s something he promised Steve that he wouldn’t do unless it was the absolute only thing left. So when he leaves Steve’s sickbed, he goes out the door of their apartment and turns left, down the hall, instead of right, out the door and down the street to the church.

He reaches the correct door in thirteen strides of his long legs. Bucky hesitates for a single second before he knocks. They’d discussed this, the last time; he has Steve’s explicit consent. He has, in his pocket, the most valuable thing he owns: his late father’s watch. He doesn’t know if the witch will accept it as payment, but he has to try.

Less than ten minutes later, he’s standing again in the doorway, watch still in his pocket, now accompanied by a tiny silver flask.

“For this item, I cannot determine payment. The universe will right itself one day, and you will know your debt has been cleared,” the witch had said, with a glint in her eye that Bucky was too cautious to confront.

Back in their room, Steve is lost somewhere in the throes of a fever. He’s delirious - his eyes are glassy when Bucky wakes him, and he’s looking right at Bucky without seeing him.

“Steve, Stevie. Sweetheart. I need you to drink this, okay?” Bucky says. Steve blinks, but doesn’t say anything, or really give Bucky any indication that he’s heard him.

This is why they talked about this possibility before, months ago, when the witch first moved in. Just in case. They both knew that this would only be necessary if Steve were too far gone to consent in the moment. But he had said yes, he wanted this, and Bucky clings to that memory now, as he tips Steve’s head back and holds it steady with one hand.

“Open up, there you go, you’re doing great, Stevie,” he says. He flicks the cap off the flask and opens Steve’s mouth up with his thumb, and then tips the flask. A small stream of red liquid, thinner and brighter than Bucky had imagined, pours into Steve’s open mouth. Steve, thankfully, doesn’t sputter or choke. He swallows peacefully, and then his eyes close and he drops quickly into a deep, deep sleep.

Steve sleeps, as they say, like the dead.

When he wakes, nearly a full day later, he has no pulse. His lungs draw no breath. His skin is cold to the touch, but that’s nothing new.

All Bucky cares about is that he’s alive - for some definition of the word - and his eyes are clear.

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- special thanks to [deisderium](https://twitter.com/deisderium) for the beta!  
> \- title is from Carly Rae Jepsen's Warm Blood which is a) a jam and b) 100% about vampires  
> \- there’s more of this in the works, I have ideas from both ends of the war to put down on paper, but I’m just going to post them as they come to me and as I finish them, not in any sort of correct order, lol  
> \- check me out on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/softestbuck) for, frankly, a bunch of nonsense


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